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It is a bit annoying that we always fall for the bread and fishes scam . . . will we ever learn!? A politician is a politician because he has two skills, one is his ability to use convincing rhetoric and the other is putting that rhetoric to the defence of the powerful, no matter they be the military, industry or some other interest group.

It is a bit annoying that we always fall for the bread and fishes scam . . . will we ever learn!?

But, but... change and stuff! Surely we won't see the Federal Government still beholden to the well connected at the expense of John Q. Public, right? It's not like the Democrats just represent a different set of freedoms that will be eroded, is it?

As far as I am concerned that is exactly the choice I made when I voted: a different set of freedoms to be eroded. I thought I made a good choice. The policies Obama has been supporting lately leave me to question my decision. Either he is making a deliberate effort to force the courts to acknowledge and rule on unconstitutional policies of, and the war crimes perpetrated by, the Bush Administration or I made a erroneous decision.

The way I see things, I will not know that for a while... at least until these issues run their way through the judicial system.

In any account... let me know when I can I vote for a someone running with Pirate Party in the US.

I paid my taxes in hope this year. Unfortunately, the IRS sent me a nasty letter demanding immediate payment of the amount I owed in US legal tender. Hope is useless, it turns out. Unfortunately, the postal service charged me a pretty penny when I re-filed my tax returns and paid the amount I owed with change.

I think for some folks, it will set in when their private insurance perks above whatever standard the government sets is stripped of it's tax break.

For the elderly, it'll set in when they go to have their glaucoma fixed and put on a 1-year waiting list like they are in the UK, or a 50 year old goes in for a kidney transplant and is told he's too old to receive a transplant under the government health plan or the elderly patient with the broken hip is told that they are too old for the government to pay for

The most expensive year of your life is almost always your last one. The multiple 'heroic' attempts to save the life of grandma are extremely costly and have a very small benefit to society. Yes, I was extremely saddened when my grandmother passed away, but the last year of her life after her stroke was extremely costly and unjustifiable. This is not a unique event. My great aunt post-Alzheimer had the exact same costly treatments and same end result.. Uncured dementia and prolonged death at great expense to US taxpayers.

We have forgotten as a society how to die gracefully. Just because you have the technology to keep someone alive well past the time their brain has died doesnt mean you should. And it certainly doesnt mean that the government should pay for it. If you want to pay $100,000 to keep your brain dead grandmother alive, feel free. But dont expect everyone else to pay for you.

If we dont get old age expenses under control, there will be no Social Security or Medicare for the young.

Comments about people being on waiting lists are easily rebutted with evidence of people in countries like the USA who do NOT get a service because they're not covered or are bankrupted or otherwise financially impoverished because they're not covered enough.

What's your point? Not all of us happen to believe that it's a proper role of Government to take money from people who aren't impoverished and use it to provide for those who are. There are better ways to address poverty than by taking money away from those who aren't poor at gunpoint and giving it to those who are.

Will all the doctors charge less?Will all the companies that make the drugs charge less?

Also, all these extra benefits to people are going to do more harm then good. If someone has to do nothing to get a roof over their head, they get good health care for free, they get paid to stay at home, where is the incentive to better them selves? There is none. They can sit at home with their hand out and the checks arrive.

If you didn't notice, those who are not billionaires but make a good income (in the $300,000 - $1,000,000 range), will be getting a major tax increase. For some reason congress is exempt. I have yet to see congress vote in favor of increasing taxes they alone have to pay.

So for most of the US (those making less then $70k a year) the taxes paid will go up a little. The almost millionaires will be paying a huge increase. The already millionaires and up not much has changed.

Google the new tax code and the proposed tax changes for tax year 2009, 2010. Someone has to pay for all these changes.

Sarcasm aside, this country is already fundamentally insolvent even if we do not add on additional liabilities like socialized health care. We can't pay the bills we had in 2007, we can't pay the bills we've added since then, and we damn sure can't pay the bills Obama is planning to add on top...even if you kill the rich and the middle class and confiscate their wealth. Not that Obama and company won't get around to trying that when their abject failure becomes apparent. That of course, assumes that failure of the US economic is not their end goal....which it might very well be (it would be hard to figure out how they could be even more irresponsible).

Additionally, fraud is rampant in Medicare, which ultimately costs more than a little bit of administrative overhead.

Finally, benefits for Medicare have been growing at an unsustainable rate since it's inception. I do not think you want a program that grows 3x faster than the rate of inflation as your benchmark program for long term medical costs reduction.

You're complaining about medicare growth? Have you seen the increase in private insurance premiums?

Exactly so. Private insurance ultimately is constrained by the consumer's ability to pay for it. Government provided benefits in conjunction with chronic deficit spending is constrained by nothing at all. It's always easier for the pols to promise additional benefits that will be paid by the sweat and labor of your children and grandchildren.

How is he different from the mumbling cowboy that Bush was? Have you ever heard him speak without a teleprompter? I have and there isn't much difference. Hell, Even Biden made a remark about Obama being lost when the wind at some speech in Colorado blew the teleprompter over and broke it. When Bush read from the screen, he sounded pretty good too.

This is one of the more insightful things I've read in the comments on slashdot... I wish I had mod points today. I *do* forget the above, but it's true. Also, the kind of person that would go through the trouble to be a president isn't the kind of person you'd ever want to be your president.

That does not explain George W. "Nukyuler" Bush. If anything, it goes to serve as evidence for how completely useless the office of the POTUS actually is. It is my opinion that Obama did win because of his powerful rhetoric and charisma, but like JFK, is now being introduced to the dark forces that actually run and influence the government. JFK was planning to act against any number of those forces and paid the price. (Yeah, yeah, yeah... save the conspiracy theory nut crap. The crap that we all know a

Obama is far to the left of the American electorate. That statement stands on it's own.

If you look at the polls on socialization of health care, nationalization of the banking industry, nationalization of the auto-industry, and blanket support for unions, where Obama lines up and where Americans in general line up are not the same.

It's fairly close to what I expected, though Obama has indeed surpassed by expectations.

SEriously though, what's he going to do, walk into his office, get his first intelligence briefing, and then decide immediately to change the way the whole intel community works? As someone who worked in Intel for a few years before I couldn't stand working for government bureaucracy anymore, that's utterly laughable. Nobody who has seen actual intel reports thinks that way--left, right, or other.

A politician is a politician because he has two skills, one is his ability to use convincing rhetoric and the other is putting that rhetoric to the defence of the powerful, no matter they be the military, industry or some other interest group.

No, they don't defend the powerful with words. At least, Saddam didn't die of their words after he offered to sell oil for EUR too, instead of USD only.

Because GHW Bush thought it would rip his coalition apart *and* fail to achieve the goal. As for North Korea, they're living proof that once you HAVE nukes, you're pretty much immune as long as people think you're crazy enough to use them on Tokyo.

Honestly, I think that this issue doesn't have the visibility that Obama would take into account. It's probably making his media buddies happy, but that's probably just a happy coincidence.

Basically it's:

Loose constructionist: check

Woman: check

Hispanic: check

High court experience: check

Anything else, as I said, is likely to simply be a bonus. Not to mention that it can be hard to pin down a Supreme Court justice to a general game plan that you think he's going to play *cough*Souter*cough*, let alone specifics on damages, etc.

I'm pretty sure he's talking about the speech where she said a female latina Judge would come to a better decision (on the basis of her being female and latina) than a white male judge.

Now, I fell off the political correct bandwagon a long time ago, but I do believe that the bulk of the people that make up the Democratic party would've had themselves a little uproar if John Roberts had said something of the lines of "I think a white male judge can come to a better informe

she said a female latina Judge would come to a better decision (on the basis of her being female and latina) than a white male judge.

And she probably would if that were the only difference between her and a white male judge. Nobody worth their salt is going to claim that you can overcome your background when making a judgment. Further, it's easier to have empathy towards those who are in situations similar to those you've been in. Finally, even George Will will tell you that empathy is an important part of the judicial process.

That said, I don't think that gender or race should be the highest criteria for nominating a supreme court justice. Any form of racial or gender-based discrimination should be eliminated when possible, otherwise we create a group mentality of us vs them. That's why I hate this nomination and will probably hate Obama's nominations from here on out. I don't believe that Obama would nominate a white male for this position regardless of the circumstances, and that's ridiculous.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

VERY different than what you imply. Tell me, how is what she said any different from what Alito said? Where does she say that a Latina will make better decisions? Nowhere, and that is not at all what she was implying.

Actually, it looks worst in context. Until the final sentence she's pushing the usual post-modern relativist position, then pulls a 180 on the last sentence, which implies that, contradicting the previous sentence, she does believe that there is a universal definition of better.

Add her lesser abhorrence (her own words) of the idea of physiological or cultural differences, than the old white woman, and she sounds MORE racist, not less.

I find it quite disheartening the number of replies you've gotten trying to explain it away as "strict interpretation of the law" given that it's one of the many cases of hers that were overturned the instant it hit the Supreme Court. So obviously if it was "

The Supreme Court gets to decide what cases they want to hear, and hearing one you don't think you might overturn is a waste of time. So it's true that opinions that get reviewed by the Supreme Court don't fare well in the Supreme Court.

About 75% get reversed. Like I said, you can interpret what her record means. I was just pointing out that it was not three. It was five reversed, and one result affirmed with her reasoning rejected.

She's just not an extremist by any reasonable measure.

Perhaps not, but what's more important is she will now play a very large role in determining what "extreme" means. As soon as she is confirmed, the "mainstream" law is whatever she and four other people say it is.

Not so. The original letter of the law came into being circa 1970 with the full 70's environmental movement that created the EPA and such. Once Reagan got into power, he pursued, and eventually codified, some more business-friendly directives, specifically, enshrining cost-benefit analysis [archives.gov]. Clinton modified it, and Obama is looking to overhaul [reginfo.gov] [pdf] or even rewrite it.

The problem is that we have two laws in conflict: the original laws forming the EPA (among others) from the late 60's to early 70's, and t

The problem is that we have two laws in conflict: the original laws forming the EPA (among others) from the late 60's to early 70's, and then executive orders which seek to mitigate them. . . [S]he is supporting the original (Democrat, I think) version of the law, and ignoring the (Republican) executive order that applies.

The problem with this reasoning is that executive orders are not laws. Remember separation of powers [wikipedia.org]. The legislature makes the law, the executive applies the law, and the courts interpret the law. The President has no ability to make law. Executive orders are basically binding policy statements issued to federal agencies. A judge doesn't owe an executive order deference if it conflicts with the statute.

The entire point of the RIAA cases* is to increase the risk of file sharing so that it becomes less common. If they only sued for a couple hundred bucks, then no one would care. These cases are all about punitive action and would be worthless without it. If Sotomayor supports punitive infringement suits, she will almost certainly support the RIAA's.

* Certainly part of the RIAA's plan is to also leverage the life-crushing nature of their lawsuits to extort money out of others, but that doesn't

Not true in the slightest (well, maybe the slightest). It is neigh guaranteed that some time in the lifetime of whoever is appointed the Supreme Court will hear a case regarding the excessiveness of damages in a (personal) infringement suit. Their ruling would basically decide if the present statue (regarding damages) is constitutional.

So true, they will not be deciding how much money _you_ have pay. However, they will be deciding something much more important: the minimum and maximum that _anyone_ should have to pay.

So the reason damages are so high in copyright cases is because there is a statue about it. Normally in civil suits damages are limited to actual damages and then something in the realm of 3x actual for punitive, if warranted. Ok so for copying a CD the maximum you could possible argue in actual damages would be the retail cost of the CD (and that might be questionable since it is a copy, not a theft). That would end up with a total damage range of like $30-60 per CD, and then only if they can get punitive damages.

However copyright law provides for incredibly high statutory damages, we are talking like $100,000 per incident. Thus the RIAA can go after people for tons of money and use it as leverage to force a settlement. The problem with that is that it runs contrary to the 8th amendment.

So this is well an issue the SC could be hearing soon. A defendant could claim that the statutory damages are unconstitutionally high, meaning the law should be struck down.

The problem is that the current copyright fines ($750 - %150,000 per infringement) were set at a time when the major source of infringement was businesses or "pirate for profit" operations (the folks who sell illegal copies of movies/music on the street corner). If you caught a CD press operation with 100 CDs, you could fine them $750,000 and drain their current financial resources dry. If a business considered infringing on copyright, the fine would (theoretically) deter them from doing so.

The problem is that a lot of current infringement is done by average everyday folks not looking for a profit. If I download a single movie from an unauthorized torrent (say, a leaked copy of a movie still in the theaters), I could be sued for $150,000. That much of a fine could easily bankrupt me - all for a single movie download. Yes, I know that the RIAA/MPAA go after uploaders, not downloaders and yes, I know that they would likely be awarded a smaller fine, but the fact remains that I could be bankrupted over a single instance of casual, not-for-profit copyright infringement. The law needs to be updated to bring the fines more in line with today's crimes.

1. The Supreme Court, in its Gore decision, did not distinguish between statutory damages or punitive damages. It referred to "punitive awards", it cited a Supreme Court precedent involving statutory damages, and it based its conclusion as to an acceptable multiple on an analysis of statutory damages.

2. The 8th amendment argument has to do with the argument that it is really a criminal statute in sheeps' clothing. The body of law to which I refer is under the 5th amendment, due process, concept.

Huh, that's odd, I only found the article to list one case -- the TopRank suing the host of a tavern in 1996. And the statement she added as:

"A willful infringement, which the magistrate judge found, combined with a willful
default, however, warrant an award greater and more significant than one which corresponds so closely to an estimated loss to the plaintiff,"

Are there more decisions I missed? Are we basing our image of this woman off of one action and one statement?

It's not a good indication but it's hardly conclusive. Things have changed with the advent of the internet since then. Here's to hoping, I guess, but I think we're being a bit unfair and too hasty.

You can also base it on the fact that she has always ruled in favor of giving the government more power and the fact that Obama has been filling the Justice Department with RIAA lawyers (see signature).

and the fact that Obama has been filling the Justice Department with RIAA lawyers

You do realize that a lawyer's job is to vigorously argue his client's case, regardless of whether he "believes in the cause" or not. An attorney can vigorously defend a murderer, while all the time believing that his client is indeed guilty. Hey, the lawyer on "The Wire" knew all of Stanfield's gang were guilty, right?

Point being that just because these guys represented the RIAA in a previous life, it doesn't mean they actually support or like what the RIAA does. Maybe with the inside info, they are more l

"A willful infringement, which the magistrate judge found, combined with a willful default, however, warrant an award greater and more significant than one which corresponds so closely to an estimated loss to the plaintiff,"

I don't know anything about the facts of this one case, but by itself, this seems reasonable enough to me. I mean, if you download a music album and happen to get sued for it, and the court forces you to pay the $15 that the CD would have cost in a store, that's virtually no risk at all. I would support punitive damages equal to two, three, or perhaps as high as ten times the retail value of the CD.

Which, of course, doesn't even come close to the tens of thousands of dollars that the RIAA thinks is fair. Th

Huh, that's odd, I only found the article to list one case -- the TopRank suing the host of a tavern in 1996. And the statement she added as:

"A willful infringement, which the magistrate judge found, combined with a willful default, however, warrant an award greater and more significant than one which corresponds so closely to an estimated loss to the plaintiff,"

Are there more decisions I missed? Are we basing our image of this woman off of one action and one statement?
It's not a good indication but it's hardly conclusive. Things have changed with the advent of the internet since then. Here's to hoping, I guess, but I think we're being a bit unfair and too hasty.

eldavojohn, you are quite right to be skeptical of the Wired article. In fact, there is no basis for the author to have drawn the conclusion he did. The Top Rank case is a garden variety, 'bar and tavern' case, in which the statutory damages awarded are usually 2 to 4 times the actual damages. The Magistrate's decision was below the normal range, despite his finding of wilfulness. Judge Sotomayor merely raised the award to within the typical range. It appears that she awarded between 2 and 3 times the actual damages.

In RIAA-land that would translate to from 70 cents to $1.00, as opposed to from $750 to $150,000.

No reason in the world to think Judge Sotomayor would disregard a hundred years of Supreme Court precedent and dance to the RIAA's tune.

kinda hard to cry oppression when you can pop back a cold one and watch a bunch schmoes battle it out on a cheesy singing contest on hdtv, then fire up the xbox 360 for some video games.. write whatever we want on slashdot... what is it that we were revolting over again? oh, Obama might take my guns away but lucky high powered lasers are getting pretty affordable. why would I want an assault rifle when I can cut a stadium full of people in half from 500 miles away.

I bet not... According to some back of the envelope calculations, there's a vertical divergence of approximately 8 miles (due to the earth's curvature) over a distance of 500 miles. So, even if you were firing said laser from the top of Mt Everest (~5.5 miles tall) your hypothetical stadium would still have to be in a valley over 3 miles deep with nothing of significance between your emitter and it.

Alternately, you'd need to be in an airborne vehicle 8 miles or so above the planet's surface. That's about a mile higher than most commercial jet traffic, so you'd need some serious wings (think fighter jet) to get high enough to hit your target. So, yeah, I bet you can't. 8^)

Note for (other) pedants: I know the parent wasn't being literal, but I thought this looked like a fun problem to work out anyway.

Yeah because no Republicans have ever supported DRM, the RIAA/MPAA and the DMCA. Oh wait, only 1 Republican obstained from the DMCA vote and the rest all voted for it in the Senate. Oh and I won't even bring up that the DMCA was introduced in the House by a Republican and considering how the House at the time had a Republican majority that they would have had to have backed it in a significant amount for it to pass. And I also won't mention how in 2003, Republican Mitch Bainwol become the CEO of the RIAA in 2003. Yep those Republicans sure are anti-DMCA, DRM and RIAA/MPAA. *rolls eyes* Or maybe we can stop with the stupid rhetoric and recognize that both parties are in bed with the copyright interests.

Fixed that for you. You were missing a few. Funny how the bankers appear on both lists, isn't it? I don't know if I should complement them for being such clever bastards or hope that they are the first ones up against the wall if the brown stuff hits the fan.

I reckon RIAA and those persuaded by their arguments will continue to try to tighten their grip as much as they can wherever they can. Whether or not Sotomayor will decide in ways that favour RIAA or not is something I hesitate to speculate about. However if people want their government representatives and judges to understand their reservations about RIAA's way of doing business they have to continue to speak up; not only to protest but also to try and find solutions to the situation we are at now.

What should be the principles behind music and movie distribution? I for one would hope for something that those purchasing and creating such material would both find acceptable. Though it is hard for me to say what that would be. At the moment what we have are many reacting to what they see as negative trends, and some saying so in well argued ways, but as long as RIAA can claim even an inch of legitimate concern for the artists and their rights they will continue to resist reforms they cant adequately, in their eyes, influence.

Adding a speculation. As technology evolves and knowledge (guides, e-books, videos, forums etc) continue to proliferate I could become (and already is according to some musician mates of mine) easier for independent bands and musicians to gain access to people with the equipment and knowledge of how to record and mix music at a high level of quality. While such equipment is by no means cheap it is cheaper, and easier to get than it has been in the past. For those with the drive and ambition to push their ow

First, the case quoted involved willful infringement by a business and other aggravating circumstances. Also, from a strict-construction viewpoint the law does specify the amount of statutory damages so her finding that, if infringement occurred and the claim qualified for statutory damages, damages in the amount defined by the law were to be awarded would hardly be unexpected.

The big question is how she views the whole question of whether infringement occurred. That's the area where the RIAA and MPAA tend to part company with the rest of us. It's pretty clear that mass copying and distribution of unauthorized copies is infringing behavior, whether or not it's done for commercial gain. Note please that making 10,000 copies of a tape and handing them out on the street-corner is a far cry from copying a couple of songs off a tape so your friend can listen to them. To my mind there's three categories: copying that's not infringing period (eg. the copies needed to listen to anything on a computer), copying that's clearly infringing (the aforementioned making copies in bulk for anybody who comes along), and an intermediate range where the copying's technically infringing but so inoffensive that we view it as unreasonable for the owner to complain about it absent some additional problems. Making a copy of a few songs for a friend falls into that third category, it's technically infringing but the general reaction to an owner complaining about just that would be "Jeesh, get a life, dude.". The usual way the courts handle things like this is to award some token amount of damages, like the retail price of the songs copied, and then deny any request for costs by the plaintiff. What I'm interested in is exactly where Judge Sotomayor draws the lines between those three categories.

Note please that making 10,000 copies of a tape and handing them out on the street-corner is a far cry from copying a couple of songs off a tape so your friend can listen to them. To my mind there's three categories: copying that's not infringing period (eg. the copies needed to listen to anything on a computer), copying that's clearly infringing (the aforementioned making copies in bulk for anybody who comes along), and an intermediate range where the copying's technically infringing but so inoffensive tha

I don't think we fundamentally disagree. Technically, giving a copy of a couple of songs to your friend is wrong. But it's also on a whole different level from handing out copies in bulk to anybody. It's in the same area as "little white lies". It's wrong to lie, but at the same time when you Aunt Edith gives you that hideously ugly sweater as a birthday gift it's considered not really the done thing to tell her the unvarnished truth. Both fall into areas where it's not entirely black-or-white and a bit of

I don't see anything in the Top Rank decision which justifies the conclusion the Wired author has drawn. The only decision referred to was Top Rank v. Allerton Lounge, a typical 'bar and tavern' case. In those cases the statutory damages are frequently from 2 to 4 times the actual damages. The Magistrate appears to have awarded statutory damages on a 1:1 ratio. Judge Sotomayor raised the damages, but not wildly to some extreme multiple like what the RIAA looks for. It appears that her award was between 2 and 3 times the actual damages, which is within the usual range.

The RIAA seeks from 2,200 to 450,000 times the actual damages. It is well settled law that statutory damages awards have to bear a reasonable relationship to the actual damages, and in keeping with economic reality. And it is well settled law that excessive disproportion to the actual damages is unconstitutional, as a violation of the due process clause.

There is no reason in the world to think that Judge Sotomayor would consider imposing statutory damages of $750 to $150,000 as against plaintiff's 35-cent loss for the download of a single mp3 file.

In the unlikely event that the RIAA could prove the defendant was a "distributor" -- i.e. someone who disseminated copies to the public by selling them, or by other transfers of ownership, or by rentals, leases, or lending -- then of course the actual damages would be higher than 35 cents. But the RIAA would have to prove its actual damages, and then the court could award statutory damages greater than that sum, but -- under established Supreme Court precedent -- the award would be constitutionally suspect were the ratio greater than single digits.

Perhaps you can correct me if I am wrong NYCL, but I was under the impression that the $750-$150,000 damages were specially established in the copyright laws as a special category of statutory damages for willful copyright infringements. However, it probably also true that copyright should NOT be a special case, or at least not so special when compared to other willful types of damages as to require 2,200+ times more damages. I hope that the Capitol vs Thomas case does eventually (although I do feel for Jam

Granted, the damages do seem high, but these are only applied where the conclusion has already been made that a proper case was brought about and the crime proven without a reasonable doubt.

Why focus on this after-the-fact nonsense? In a perfect judicial world where only copyright violators were convicted, I would whole-heartedly support brutal monetary punishments to these self-entitled jackasses.

But in reality, shouldn't this crowd-sourced angst be directed at the flawed proceedings and discovery that is the real issue here? Please, for everyone who cares about "justice" and fair use and other copyright issues, let's focus the energy, however fickle it is, on what really matters here.

The folks at TechnicallyLegal (disclaimer, I'm a writer and podcaster there) wrote up a post as to why her decision in the copyright case will have little bearing on the outcome of the RIAA cases. And why her reasoning there isn't really indicitive of what her reasoning may be in those cases.

Eisenhower nominated Earl Warren, a Republican governor of California to the Supreme Court. Warren was a centrist with broad support on both sides of the aisle. Warren led the Supreme Court through a remarkably liberal period. Eisenhower later publicly rued the choice he made. Bush the Elder nominated Souter as a conservative, and got something quite different.

The Court of Appeals judges (like Sotomayor) are bound by existing law and precedent. They never get the opportunity to be the final word on the Constitution. Once they go to the Supreme Court, they have the complete, unobstructed freedom to change--and they often do.

TFA is just speculative nonsense./. is just putting it out because it starts little flame wars between the piracy lovers and the piracy haters. Aargh, matey.

Are you aware of Sotomayor's dissent [salon.com] in which she defended the 1st amendment rights of a white NYPD employee when he was fired for having sent blatantly racist and anti-Semitic replies in response to charity requests he received in the mail?

I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering.

The horror!

I am so sick of people taking one fragment of a speech or one ruling and rushing to judgment based on their own biases and agendas. Take a deep breath. Read Ricci. Read the Pappas dissent. Then let us know what you think.

I'll start this off with the admission that I am a white, conservative, Christian, heterosexual male (some times referred to as "the source of all the world's problems"). When I read this summary I was spurred to go look into Sotamayor's previous rulings and how that might effect her future ones. I have heard the talking heads on both sides (I have a 1 hour drive to work each day and mostly listen to NPR... meh... it's something to listen to) and hadn't come to a conclusion about my opinion of her. I think the Federal Supreme Court is currently the most powerful entity in the USA, all the more so when it's prospective members have been quoted (jokingly or not) saying that policy is made from the bench.

All that being said, I was hesitant to hold a specific opinion on her appointment to the FSC. So I did some research... WIKIPEDIA FTW!!!

It turns out (following the wikipedia links and using Google when they ran out for extra source material) that I... usually agreed with her. She seems to hold strictly to the letter of the law and her interpretations of it seem to be in line with what mine would usually be. She held up a man's rights to say racist, bigoted, ugly things, she dissented in a ruling that upheld a juvenile detention center's right to strip search young girls (convicted of no crime, being held in suspicion of committing no crime), and she upheld the rights of the NFL to set it's own rules for who can play in the league saying "We follow the Supreme Court's lead in declining to 'fashion an antitrust exemption [so as to give] additional advantages to professional football players... that transport workers, coal miners, or meat packers would not enjoy" (though wikipedia says there is a citation needed for that quote). There are other rulings listed that I agree with, and some that I don't, but as a whole I find that I generally agree with what I've read about her.

She's right, by the way, in saying that experience and culture influence judgment. It would be nice if it didn't but that is just not possible in people's brains. We are not computers. We are living, breathing, feeling, emotional, prejudiced, loving, bigoted, beings. We cannot get around that. To all those who don't like that idea, THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF HAVING 9 PEOPLE ON THE BENCH IS FOR THIS VERY REASON. We cannot trust ONE person to make the final judgment because that person will see an issue through their own clouded perspective. So we add a reasonable amount of others and appoint those who have shown that they push through their cloudy view more than most... and hope for the best.

The system is inherently flawed because it involves people. We put the best people up there and hope that it has as few flaws as possible.

I'm a conservative, and from what I've heard she's awful - but your examples give me a more complete perspective of her record. Hopefully she isn't as bad as she seems when I listen to talk radio.

That said, I'll point out two things:

1 - "I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations" This implies she thinks she is incapable of (or at least limited in) rendering decisions apart from her "experiences", presumably those relevant to being

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Re

Yep. But if the law says statutory damages are to be in a certain range and the claim meets the requirements to award statutory damages in lieu of actual damages, which judge is legislating from the bench: the judge who awards damages in the range specified by the law, or the judge who decides that the damages are excessive and reduces the award below what the law specifies?

It is not "legislating from the bench" to declare a damages award, authorized by a statute, to be unconstitutional. The fundamental law of the United States is its constitution. When a statute violates the constitution, the judge has to say so. That is not legislating, that is applying the law. The US Supreme Court has said that "punitive awards" which are unreasonably disproportionate to the actual damages are unconstitutional.

Here is a simple solution: Get some morals and ethics and stop infringing on their copyrights.

Copyrights that they too often SHOULD NO LONGER HAVE. Under the 1790 Copyright Act, it would last 14 years (renewable for extra 14). But the big media kept buying laws to stretch the damn thing again and again, and don't you doubt they will do it again. Those scoundrels don't care about screwing the people, so why should anyone have qualms about screwing them back? There is nothing moral about respecting an immora